Chapter 66

Marcus felt, all things considered, amazingly good. He was tired, his legs ached, his arm itched like crazy, his eyes were dry and heavy, but life was good. Connor was where he belonged — or would be when the hospital released him, and the police took custody. Hope was safe, and Shawna was waiting for him at home.

He sprang up the steps to the flat, heavy bass from his iPod flattening his eardrums soothingly, and keyed open the door, slinging his bag on the couch. The scent in the air was the first thing that caught his attention, though he couldn't immediately place it. He took his headphones out.

The flat was silent, worryingly so. He flitted across the carpet to his room — their room — but it was empty. He walked to the kitchen. Seeing a pile of clothes on the counter, and grabbed a knife. He recognised the jeans as Shawna's, and the shoes kicked under the table as a pair he'd bought her. He felt a coldness start at the bottom of his stomach.

He didn't know how, he didn't know why, but somehow, he convinced himself, Connor had gotten free. When he reached Hope's door, fear and anger were mingling in his head, competing with the tiredness of a long night answering police questions. It was half ajar, wedged open on a discarded blouse — too small to be Shawna's — and he felt his teeth grind as his jaw clenched.

His instinct was to fling the door open, to charge in, but he forced himself to be cautious. He teased the door open little by little, peering slowly in, dreading what he might find.

The bedclothes were rumpled. The two figures sleeping atop it were still slick with sweat and their own fluids, their skin glistening and slight, content smiles on their faces. On the floor beside the bed, a half-packed suitcase lay where it had fallen in their throes of passion. All the anger, all the fear, all the love and compassion just vanished, replaced by a gnawing, deep hole of numb betrayal.

The knife slipped from his fingers unnoticed and stuck quivering in the wooden floor point first between his feet. Shawna reacted by only tightening her arm a little over Hope's flat stomach. Tears blurred his vision, and he wiped them away, staring at the sight for a slow, gut-wrenching minute as he pondered what he was seeing.

They'd gone for each other. He'd seen their looks, knew there was something there, something like the way Elspeth and Briana looked at each other. Like the way he looked at Shawna. He had dismissed it — he wasn't good at reading those sorts of signs and signals — but he'd been right.

It had been a long, emotional night, but they'd come through, and he thought everything was finally right with the world. He should have known it wouldn't last.

He whispered goodbye to them both, turned, and walked away. He didn't really think about where he was going, at first, but by the time he had his bike started he knew. It was time to go back home, back to Nick and Ally, and get rid of all the distractions and the foolishness and things he didn't understand and people who had hurt him. He wasn't cut out for the real world. He could see that now.

Real people — normal people —would have seen it coming. They wouldn't have been hurt. The miles flew by under the wheels, and the pain didn't dim at all even as the sun moved through the afternoon sky towards the horizon.

"What's with Marcus?" Elspeth called, strolling through the main room of the flat. He'd brushed past her like she wasn't even there. "Hello..." she looked around, but there was no answer — it wasn't like Marcus to leave the door unlocked.

She walked back to Hope's room, and bent to pull the knife out of the floorboards. A bleary-eyed Hope was slowly sitting up, unwinding Shawna's arm from her waist and pulling her skirt across herself for cover.

"What?" she whispered, turning round to pull her shirt on. Elspeth just stared, amazed at what she saw.

"Did Marcus know about this?" she whispered back, and Hope looked guiltily down at Shawna, clenching her jaw at the realisation of what she'd done.

"No, and he can't!" she hissed fiercely. "Help me pack. I have to leave."

"What's this?" Elspeth asked, holding out the knife. "It was stuck in the floor."

Hope just shrugged as she put her underwear on, still trying to hide behind the skirt.

"Marcus was here, you know, a few seconds ago," Elspeth said.

"WHAT?" Hope blurted aloud and snapped upright, waking Shawna.

"I saw him going down the steps. He brushed right past me like he didn't even realise I was here."

"Was he singing?" Shawna asked, a tremble in her voice, not needing to ask about whom they were talking.

"Yeah." Elspeth managed, hesitantly, after a moment's thought.

"Oh, God," Hope breathed.

"What... Did you hear what song it was?" Shawna asked, out of the bed herself now, heedless of her nudity.

"No... something about... 'clear and cruel' I caught."

"You see their snakey arms entwined /So clear and cruel /In your jealous mind..." Hope sang quietly.

"Could've been, yeah," Elspeth confirmed. "Why? What does singing have to do with it?"

"Marcus sings when he's nervous, or upset," Shawna called back as she ran to the kitchen and grabbed her clothes.

Hope followed, still buttoning her skirt as she did.

"Bleak Hill?" she asked, trying to hold back the tears. When she saw them glance at the mark the knife had left in the floor, she knew she'd said what they were all thinking.

"I don't know," Shawna said, giving up on fumbling with her belt. She whipped it out the belt loops of the jeans and threw it on the table.

"What the fuck have you two done to him?" Elspeth spat at the pair of them, and neither of them could face that.

"Does it matter? We... We need to talk to him," Hope said as she just looked back at the bed. Whatever happened, she knew, she'd never be able to go in there again. Never.

"We hurt him." Was all the explanation Shawna would give. "We were stupid, and selfish... and confused. And scared."

"Bleak Hill..." Elspeth's voice went cold.

"I hope not, but..." Shawna's sniffling voice almost broke Elspeth's resolve.

"I doubt it. He's... He's stronger than that now," Hope said. "I think... we should check, in case, but..."

"Damn it!" Elspeth snapped, snatching her keys from her bag. "Come on then, but if he's done something stupid you can be damned sure I'm going to push you two in after him!"